ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (The Dissociated Press) - After spending his first week in office fulfilling several campaign promises, including those to limit the influence of lobbyists, prohibit torture, and order the closure of the detainee prison at Guantanamo Bay, President Obama made good Friday on another pledge ... by attacking Pakistan.
Mr. Obama brought his special tandem messages of "hope" and "change" to the Pakistani people via several air-to-surface missiles fired from an unmanned US Predator drone. The attack, on a village in one of western Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA ... not to be confused with Fatah, the Palestinian political party and largest faction of the Palestine Liberation Organization, or Feta, the brined curd cheese traditionally made in Greece with goat's and sheep's milk) killed 22 people, including at least 3 children.
In last Friday's press briefing at the White House, presidential press secretary Robert Gibbs (not to be confused with Robin Gibb, the oldest of the three Gibb brothers making up The Bee Gees rock group, or Willie Nelson) said that the President gave approval for the attack, because he was given "actionable intelligence indicating that the children were about to grow up to become potential terrorists who someday might target the US."
Meanwhile, in other news...
The White House acknowledged Friday in a written press release that President Obama's choice to head the Department of Health and Human Services, former Sen. Tom Daschle, had failed to pay his income taxes "for the years he has been living, thus far." There was no suggestion by the press release, however, that Daschle had paid taxes for any of the years he hasn't been alive.
Shortly after being chosen as Mr. Obama's nominee for the Cabinet position, where, it was hoped, he would lead the President's health-care reform efforts, Mr. Daschle filed amended returns to the Internal Revenue Service reporting $128,203 in back taxes and $11,964 in interest, according to a leaked Senate document.
The revelation, while it might not cost Mr. Daschle his confirmation by the Senate, is an embarrassment for the Obama administration, and President Obama personally, coming immediately on the heels of the public learning that his new Treasury Secretary, Timothy Geithner, had failed to pay over $34 thousand in taxes until he was tapped for the Cabinet.
But Lawrence Summers, chief of the President's National Economic Council, or NEC (not to be confused with neck, of which, interestingly enough, Mr. Summers seems to have an abundance), sees the newly disclosed tax liabilities in a different, and far more positive light.
"Look, from only two of the President's cabinet choices, we've already generated about $175,000 in new revenue for the federal government!" Summers explained in a telephone interview. "The best projections for the deficit in fiscal 2009 are all around $1 trillion! That means if we just expand the Cabinet a bit, say to about 5.7 million members, and we're smart about picking our nominees, we could balance the budget in our first year!!!"
And, finally, in Springfield, Illinois...
Following a four day impeachment trial, which the defendant, Governor Rod Blagojevich, eschewed, choosing instead to travel to New York to play Goofy in Disney on Ice, the Illinois State Senate voted unanimously, 59-to-0, to remove Blagojevich from office for abuse of power.
Blagojevich was indicted last year on federal bribery and wire fraud charges. The allegations included trying to sell President Obama's vacant senate seat to the highest bidder. He was impeached by the State Legislature within weeks after the indictments were handed down.
Still, most of the senators who voted for the Governor's removal said they might have been able to overlook those things had it not come out during the trial that Rod Blagojevich was not even the Governor's name. It was, they learned, just an anagram for his real name ... Jag Belch Odor IV.
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